Posts

Today's post is a bit different, but my vision came to me in conversation with my mother and the more I mulled it over, the more I grew fond of it. I hope you will enjoy what I have to share with you and that it might inspire you to ponder your own future.

I realize now as a freshly minted 31-year-old woman, that it is good to envision what your future might look like. Perhaps it might even be helpful or insightful to think about it, knowing full well it is in the far-off utopic land existing only in your mind. It might make you realize you are ready for a change or can embrace something you were not expecting. However, it is not good to obsess about the future or incessantly worry about the inevitable. While I have my fair share of trouble with anxiety, as most of us do here and there, I certainly like daydreaming and reviewing the what-if scenarios I have imagined for myself in a perfect world. Not the oh-shit-I'm-an-adult kind of world, with u…

The topic of today's post is long distance relationships. This is not my first time to the rodeo, but it has been a few years since I was in a serious relationship with someone from across the pond and I felt the need to voice my opinions on the subject and share what I've learned from my relationship and from others that are in the same position.

1. Long distance relationships are no joke because they test you in ways you never thought possible. They often fill your heart with joy or sadness, as with any other kind of relationship, but LDRs also might make you question your sanity. All of a sudden you are faced with very serious choices that other couples might not make until years down the road. Do you want kids? How many kids do you want? Where do you want to live? Will you buy a house? What are the career prospects if you move? What kind of wedding will you have? How easy is it to get a visa? Do you want to change citizenship? The list is endless and for a worry-wart, plan…

The title of today's post is borrowed from Turkish-German director Buket Alakuş's 2013 film Einmal Hans mit scharfer Soße. The film is based on Hatice Akyün's autobiographical novel of the same name published in 2005. This roughly translates to "I'd like a Hans with spicy sauce," as if you were in a restaurant ordering a Döner but instead of wanting the German-Turkish delicacy, you were in fact ordering a German man named Hans who had a little bit of a kick to him. Both the film director and the author of the novel were born in Turkey but grew up and live in Germany, so they can be considered bi-cultural. The title plays upon the cultural mix.

Here is why this is important (to me at least): the story is about a woman, who knows what she wants in a partner and refuses to settle for anything less. Although that is not fully the truth, because the main character is a 34-year-old Turkish-German successful career woman, Hatice, living in Hamburg who is pressu…

I am a professional German teacher, film scholar and translator. I am currently working on a book project for a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and welcome any and all freelance work! I also love writing in English (and in German).